Monday, March 27, 2006

THE TIME FOR ALL GOOD MEN ...

My forebodings of a year ago seem to be taking on my reality every day: Immigration truly is emerging as an issue that can shatter the Republican party. The president is determined to thrust upon the party an amnesty/guestworker approach that is opposed by the overwhelming majority of the Republican rank-and-file. He has come to believe - and tells visitors to the White House - that party opposition to him is based on irrational fear, ignorance, and prejudice. (Just like Dubai! Or for that matter, Harriet Miers.)

If anything were calculated to solidify the perception that this administration scorns the values and concerns of the ordinary Republican - if anything were designed to discourage ordinary Republican from turning out in November 2006 - it is what this administration is doing now. At a moment when the president needs his maximum strength to see his foreign policy through to success, he is gambling everything on a wager he cannot win. His version of immigration reform can only pass Congress with Democratic votes, and there is zero possibiilty that the Democrats will help him - but every likelihood that they will egg him on to incite a Republican civil war on the issue that most bitterly divides the president's party.